Evaluation of morphological traits of wheat varieties at germination stage under salinity stress.

Salinity stress is one of the major plant growth-limiting factors in agriculture. It causes ionic imbalance, thus decrease the growth and yield attributes of crops especially wheat. Seedling stage is considered as one of the most sensitive stages under salinity stress. Survival of seeds at seedling stage can overcome the adverse impacts of salinity stress to some extent. Selection of salt tolerant varieties in seedling stage is considered as an effective strategy. Hence, current study was conducted to examine the seed germination responses of four wheat varieties under different levels of salinity. The wheat varieties such as 'Rakhshan', 'Sirvan', 'Pishgam' and 'Heidari' were grown and four salinity levels of 0, 4, 8 and 12 dS/m were applied under completely randomized design. The varieties such as 'Sirvan', 'Rakhshan' and 'Heidari' showed significant response for germination compared to 'Pishgam' at 12 dS/m salinity. Furthermore, the variety 'Rakhshan' showed significantly higher germination rate (20.3%), higher root length (33.4%) and higher shoot length (84.3%) than 'Pishgam', 'Sirvan' and 'Sirvan' respectively. However, contrasting results were obtained for dry weight of seedlings where 12.2% increase was observed in 'Pishgam' over 'Rakhshan' at 12 dS/m salinity that might be due to higher capability to uptake of Na and Cl ions. In conclusion, 'Rakhshan' wheat variety proved to be the most salinity tolerant as it grew better under saline soil conditions. More investigations at field level are recommended to declare 'Rakhshan' as salinity tolerant cultivar.